Ayotte’s availability: She is remarkably accessible

Disagree with her positions all you want, but one thing you cannot truthfully say about U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte is that she hides from her constituents. Of course, that is not stopping one left-wing activist organization from saying it.

Granite State Progress, a leftist front group funded by out-of-state donors, specializes in creating false impressions. In a Sept. 3 press release, executive director Zandra Rice Hawkins alleged, “The Senator has refused meeting requests and open town halls ever since she faced backlash over her vote against criminal background checks...”

Not only did Ayotte hold three town hall meetings immediately after her vote against the Obama administration’s gun-control bill (when opposition to her vote was at its peak), but Hawkins organized disruptions at each of them and personally heckled Ayotte at least one. (Also, Ayotte did not vote against background checks — another distortion.)

Since Ayotte took office in January of 2011, she has held 23 town-hall meetings, by her office’s tally. In Washington she holds a constituent coffee every Thursday when the Senate is in session. She spent the month of August touring New Hampshire, making nearly 50 visits to local businesses, civic organizations, public officials, etc. If Granite State Progress wonders why no one outside of the far, far left takes it seriously, well, this kind of amateurish disinformation campaign is exactly why.